Larrikin with a lens
Kent Blechynden photographer b December 18, 1972 d December 23, 2020
Kent Blechynden, who has died aged 48, won numerous photography awards and was recognised as one of the country’s top news photographers.
He was also an accomplished blues harmonica player who would join bands on stage, sometimes uninvited, and called himself the fifth Datsun, having played with the internationally renowned Cambridge-based band The Datsuns.
Despite his rare photography talent, Blechynden became the bane of news media managers, editors and colleagues as he descended into alcohol addiction to the extent that he became unemployable.
After attending Pukete and Matamata primary schools and Hamilton Boys’ High School, he began his career on an obscure Waikato giveaway, the Huntlybased North Waikato Tatler.
He pestered Waikato Times chief photographer Peter Drury almost daily for a job and won him over, both by his persistence and the strength of his work.
Drury, himself a top photographer, recognised a special talent, and Blechynden thrived at the Times.
A disarming, knockabout manner allowed him to get alongside subjects, getting them to co-operate rather than avoid the camera. But a disdain for authority and rules, and a permeable social filter, meant his managers had to go into bat for him on several occasions, a recurring theme throughout his career.
His OE took him to the UK, where he was employed by a photo agency in Nottingham, supplying national dailies such as the Guardian, where his work appeared.
He joined a former Waikato Times colleague, journalist Tony Wall, in Dublin, sleeping on the lounge floor in a flat next to the Guinness factory. Blechynden found work as a car park attendant, working 12-hour shifts.
The pair would hit the Temple Bar area, busking at times to an inebriated crowd, Blechynden on his blues harp and Wall singing.
If they were on song, they would draw an appreciative crowd; if too drunk they were lucky to avoid being thumped.
Back home, Blechynden worked briefly for the Rotorua Post before joining the newly merged Dominion Post, where he did his best work under supportive editors.
He also pursued his love of music, photographing visiting stars from the mosh pit, rather than a privileged position on stage, including a memorable shot of blues great BB King in full voice, sweat rolling down to his sequinned jacket.
National awards duly followed, including Photographer of the Year, but his cavalier disregard for convention meant he walked a fine line.
His ultimate accolade was a GC (Good followed by vulgar word), and he told a black-tie audience at a national awards night that they all qualified. That was the extent of his well-oiled acceptance speech, much to the dismay of many and amusement of others.
He was appointed to cover the 2008 Beijing Olympics after vigorous lobbying by his editor, who felt lesser talents were being favoured by an unforgiving management.
But both ended up on the mat after
Blechynden disgraced himself by being pictured with his pants down standing next to an unsmiling People’s Liberation Army soldier in the Olympic village.
As the social media revolution took hold and the newspaper model was broken, photographers’ work became less valued – who needed a top snapper when a cellphone image taken by a harassed reporter would suffice for online? – and Blechynden’s life began to unravel.
When he elected to join the hundreds leaving the company, so many that farewell functions became group affairs, a vital mooring was broken, and his drinking worsened. The strain on family and friends was immense, and relationships began to fracture.
He became estranged from longsuffering partner Michelle Taylor, a Wellington beauty therapist he met at Bar Bodega, a favourite haunt where he sometimes played. They had a son together, Jimmy, now aged 11.
Blechynden was reduced to living alone in a state housing flat in Miramar, Wellington.
He photographed the grittier side of the streets – the drifters, the drunks, the down and outers, the druggies, the dispossessed that he mixed with – and some of that work was published on the Scoop website, leading to another award.
But that venture ended when his photographic kit was stolen for a second time. The first was in Dublin years earlier.
His mother, Theresa Connolly, and sister Cherie Williams remained supportive, recognising it was the demon drink talking when he was abusive, but it was nevertheless extremely distressing.
Blechynden’s many friends rallied too, giving him money, buying his prints, trying to get him sober.
A Dominion Post colleague, also a blues fan with a deep music knowledge, downloaded thousands of songs on to an iPod and gave it to Blechynden, who burst into tears at such kindness.
He was also persuaded to attend Alcoholics Anonymous at St Mary’s in Boulcott St, Wellington, but it seemed such discipline was not in his nature, and he lasted only several weeks.
It was the Salvation Army that came to his rescue, as it has for so many of life’s battlers. Blechynden, desperate for a job, joined the Sallies as a casual worker in their Miramar store last year. He so impressed that, within a week, he was made a full-timer by team leader Greg Coleman, collecting donated furniture and serving in the shop.
His cheeky character and cheery ‘‘gidday mate’’ to allcomers endeared him to the team, and Coleman rated him ‘‘a fantastic guy’’.
Blechynden adopted the title of Toy Manager and delighted in arranging the store’s extensive collection. He never missed a day’s work and, as he appeared to be getting his life back on track, the alarm was sounded when he did not appear.
He died suddenly, two days before Christmas, of asphyxia. He was cremated in a private family function.
Pink Floyd, another of Blechynden’s favourite bands, wrote Shine on You Crazy Diamond in memory of troubled cofounder Syd Barrett, who left the band with deteriorating mental health.
Kent Blechynden, too, was a crazy diamond. Shine on. – By Tim Pankhurst, editor of The Dominion Post from 2002-09.
Sources: Theresa Connolly, Cherie Williams, Michelle Taylor, Peter Drury, Tony Wall, David Armstrong, Greg Coleman.